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Comments 91201 to 91250:
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WSteven at 07:11 AM on 26 March 2011Weather vs Climate
No, no. The stovetop represents climate change due to anthropogenic CO2. The campfire represents climate change due to natural events (ie: solar irradiance, rotational precession, etc...). Sorry, feeling the need to be a bit silly. -
scaddenp at 07:09 AM on 26 March 2011There's no empirical evidence
cloa513 - if we knew everything, then there would be no need to invest in the science. This site is about the science of climate, and in particular pushing against disinformation. I dont like the disinformation industry - telling lies for financial gain is wrong. I think governments should be making the decisions based on best available information, and we will run into trouble with climate before we run out of oil and long before we run out of coal. You are suggesting a PR campaign to sell an idea to an electorate - might work but that would be telling lies too. -
johnd at 07:02 AM on 26 March 2011Weather vs Climate
flambeaub at 06:37 AM, your analogy amounts to what might be determined in a laboratory exercise. Putting that pot of water onto a campfire might leave you concluding that it is never going to boil, as I'm sure many experienced outdoors might testify to. -
scaddenp at 07:02 AM on 26 March 2011Why we have a scientific consensus on climate change
"why don't you simply read AR4 instead of loosing your time here ?" I couldnt agree more! However, the reason this site exists because is people dont and worse a huge amount of disinformation is thrown out. And so the science gets discussed. Debate is worthwhile so long as debaters back their claims and so debate is on the basis of the facts available dont you think? -
scaddenp at 06:57 AM on 26 March 2011It hasn't warmed since 1998
Its a coupled ocean/atmosphere phenomena. Tricky to assign a "cause" to the atmosphere. Why do the trades fail? However, the point really is that upwelling is heat exchange. Look at total OHC. If the current warming was just an ocean cycle, then why is total OHC increasing? So far decadal prediction eludes us. That's why climate is defined in terms of 30 year averages. What the overprint of global warming tells you is that the temperature of the peaks in ENSO events of the same magnitude is increasing. -
flambeaub at 06:37 AM on 26 March 2011Weather vs Climate
A very simple analogy is that if I put a pot of water on my stove and turn the heat to "high", I can say with a great deal of confidence that it will boil. What I can't tell you is the exact minute and second it will boil, nor where in the pot the first bubble will appear nor where and when any of the subsequent bubbles will appear. -
damorbel at 06:22 AM on 26 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Re #846 Response: [Dikran Marsupial] I think you need to read the article that you introduced to the discussion here a little more carefully. Note the author talks about the 'temperature' of a photon, the quotes imply that the meaning of temperature was not the usual meaning of the word. I think the last sentence of Paul Walorski's article sums up the matter quite well:- "So it's not so much that the photons are all at a temperature of 2.7K but rather that they appear as if they were emitted by a single blackbody which was itself at a temperature of 2.7K." That would only be true if the Planck spectrum and the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution were equivalent. My use of the word 'equivalent' is deliberate. Re #844 Philippe Chantreau. I'm sorry you have this reaction but the 2nd Law is what is in question. The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics it is very well established, it is not easy to grasp all its implications and failure to take them into account has brought many a beautiful hypothesis crashing down. I'm afraid the concept of temperature is just about as close to the heart of the 2nd Law as you can get.Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] The "they" in the sentence is the key there, you can't tell from a single photon the temperature of the emitting body, you need to look at the distribution of energies of a large number of photons and do some curve-fitting (and make an assumption or two). -
Gilles at 06:22 AM on 26 March 2011A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
" As far as the increasing cost of not using fossil fuel, that's a concept that is only fit for use on the Bizarro planet." This bizarre concept is just the only reason why we are looking for more and more resources. Thinking energy sources as a "cost" is a profound mistake : it's an income, because they produce much more wealth than what they cost. Their "cost" is just like taking your car to go to your job - it may cost a little, but much less than giving up your job. -
Gilles at 06:19 AM on 26 March 2011A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
les : sorry, but what I'm saying is just a summary of the history of the industrial civilization : increased efficiency has led to continuous increase of both energy consumption and GDP
what don't you understand ?
Mucounter : une nouvelle fois, sorry that you misunderstood me. I did say "for a given quality", they become cheaper and cheaper : of course this is not contradictory with what you said , that "this cost has increased 6-fold in the last ten years" - because the cause of this increase is just the exhaustion of cheap resources, so it is no more "for a given quality". That's exactly my point 1 : as the amount of FF is finite, at some point, the increase of intrinsic costs won't be balanced by an improvement of our techniques, and we'll face the problem of diminishing yields. Since FF are finite, this must occur at some time -which will be precisely the time when FF consumption will naturally decrease because they become more and more expensive.
But that's precisely what I'm claiming : that we are close to this moment (and particularly for oil), so the FF consumption will decrease anyway because they're too expensive (reason 1) So
a) most SRES scenarios are just imagination because they simply don't take into account the exhaustion of cheap resources (assuming that expensive resources can be extracted at the same or even higher rate , which is an aberration).
b) on the other hand, it is extremely unlikely that we burn LESS than what we are able to extract.
In other words, I'm saying that the amount of FF we will extract will depend only on our technological capabilities (which seem to saturate just now , at least for oil), and not at all on fancy colored graphics and fancy scenarios that so many "experts" are drawing.
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johnd at 05:52 AM on 26 March 2011The Libertarian Climate Conundrum
Poptech at 05:46 AM , whatever other advantages HK enjoyed, the low, flat rate of tax was the most inspired. Whilst taxpayers in high taxing countries expended time and energy to reduce their tax liability, it was more advantageous in HK to expend that time and energy to increase their tax liability. -
muoncounter at 05:42 AM on 26 March 2011The Libertarian Climate Conundrum
PT#66: No, I believe that your idea of 'irrefutable' is about as well-defined as your idea of 'skeptical'. We've already seen (on another, never-to-be-mentioned thread) how you re-define words to fit your needs. -
Rob Honeycutt at 05:32 AM on 26 March 2011The Libertarian Climate Conundrum
Remember the old saying. "Location, location, location." -
johnd at 05:31 AM on 26 March 2011Preventing Misinformation
dana1981 at 05:00 AM, thanks for the link, but. Peduzzi 2004 as an example, after taking away references to earthquakes and the media, all that is left is questions not answers. Hardly something to support any opinions. The research may well be out there, but it appears not something readily produced to support opinions as I referenced regarding the "Extreme Weather" thread. -
Rob Honeycutt at 05:30 AM on 26 March 2011The Libertarian Climate Conundrum
Poptech... HK is not part of the SEZ. It just happens to be the "gateway" to the SEZ. You may note that Shenzhen (on the HK border) has grown from a small fishing village into a metropolis of nearly 10 million since the SEZ was established. And that's not even counting the growth of the other cities included in the SEZ. THAT has driven the prosperity of HK. HK would have prospered regardless of what form of government was established there. The feather in your cap has nothing to do with Libertarianism. -
muoncounter at 05:30 AM on 26 March 2011Temp record is unreliable
Reply to comment from here. "The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project is incorporating criticism of data collection sites" And here is what the BEST project says as of today: We are first analyzing a small subset of data (2%) to check our programs and statistical methods and make sure that they are functioning effectively. We are correcting our programs and methods while still “blind” to the results so that there is less chance of inadvertently introducing a bias. The Berkeley Earth team feels very strongly that no conclusions can yet be drawn from this preliminary analysis. -- emphasis added Best to wait until there's a finding before rushing to judgment. But then, you're reading Watt$. -
damorbel at 05:26 AM on 26 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Re #843 Response: '[Dikran Marsupial] You are still not making the distinction between the "effective temperature" of a photon/emitting particle and the temperature of the emitting body.' Sorry, I must have missed something; "effective temperature"? I had not realised this matter had been commented on. Can you help me?Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] I think you need to read the article that you introduced to the discussion here a little more carefully. Note the author talks about the 'temperature' of a photon, the quotes imply that the meaning of temperature was not the usual meaning of the word.[muoncounter] The article uses 'equivalent temperature,' rather than 'effective temperature'.
[Dikran Marsupial] You are quite right, mea culpa - oh the irony! ;o)
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muoncounter at 05:25 AM on 26 March 2011Most of the last 10,000 years were warmer
Reply to cjshaker #8 on Surface temperature record thread. -
muoncounter at 05:19 AM on 26 March 2011The Libertarian Climate Conundrum
PT: "... an irrefutable direct correlation" You link to a Heritage Foundation graph of GDP per capita vs. 'economic freedom score', whatever that is. Your 'irrefutable correlation' boasts an R^2 of 0.45; hardly proof of anything other than the existence of dots on a page. But based on prior PT discussions, I'm assuming you didn't actually look at the graph before linking to it. -
y-not at 05:18 AM on 26 March 2011A climate 'Gish Gallop' of epic proportions
I love the term "Gish Gallop". Maybe it would be useful to have an extensive set of such labels, and a lexicon, for the processes that skeptics use. This could then be used to build a matrix to classify the skeptic and/or the article/publication, to help avoid getting bogged down in some of the recycled detail.Moderator Response: [DB] Over on the 2nd Law, Meet the Denominator and Waste Heat threads we have PRATT in action... -
Rob Honeycutt at 05:15 AM on 26 March 2011The Libertarian Climate Conundrum
Lest we forget... All property in HK is owned by, yes, the HK government. In HK you can only lease your property from the government. How does that jibe with Libertarian ideology? -
muoncounter at 05:10 AM on 26 March 2011A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
Gilles: "The amount of available FF is increasing with time. And there are not one, but two excellent reasons for that - ... we're becoming more and more performant to drill oil wells very deep in the ocean, extract hydrocarbons from shale, and so on... so actually for a given quality, they become cheaper and cheaper" This Gillesian logic is based on the usual paucity of facts: Do you have any data on the full-cycle finding and development cost per boe? Do you know that this cost has increased 6-fold in the last ten years? Do you know the average 'break-even price' continues to increase at a rate comparable to the market price per boe? " - increasing the efficiency raises the wealth produced by unit energy, so increases the cost of not using them." As far as the increasing cost of not using fossil fuel, that's a concept that is only fit for use on the Bizarro planet. -
cjshaker at 05:03 AM on 26 March 2011Most of the last 10,000 years were warmer
It appears that the modern temperature record being posted above may not be very accurate. The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project is incorporating criticism of data collection sites from Anthony Watts and his team (wattsupwiththat.com) "NEW - There have been many criticisms of station quality. How can you be sure that your results will be good if you are including stations that do not meet NOAA’s criteria for station quality? One of the elements that we plan to study is temperature records from just the very best sites (as classified by Anthony Watts and his team) contrasted with the poorer sites. We will include this comparison when we release our analysis. Each of our 39,028 sites has also been classified as urban or rural using the map published by the Modis satellite team, and we will use that classification to look for differences. " http://www.berkeleyearth.org/FAQ The most recent post I've found on the topic "In the next picture, Steve shows what Briffa and Osborn did – not only did they truncate their reconstruction to hide a steep decline in the late 20th Century but also a substantial early segment from 1402-1550:" [SNIP] http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/03/24/steve-mcintyre-uncovers-another-trick/ Chris ShakerModerator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] Quoted accusation of dishonesty snipped. Lets keep it to the scientific issues only please. -
dana1981 at 05:00 AM on 26 March 2011Preventing Misinformation
We've been meaning to do the extreme weather rebuttal, but there are only so many hours in the day. We're only human. The research is out there though, I've previously read a number of studies on the subject. I just can't produce them without re-doing a Google Scholar search, which you could do just as easily as I could. One quick example I can provide is Peduzzi 2004. -
Rob Honeycutt at 04:54 AM on 26 March 2011The Libertarian Climate Conundrum
Poptech... You have a complete and total concept of what will lead to economic disaster. And Hong Kong? How much time do you spend in HK, Andrew? I spend a lot of time there. I speak Cantonese. My wife is Chinese. How you come to the conclusion that HK is some bastion of Libertarianism it totally beyond me. Do you think that, you know, just maybe HK has prospered because it has been the gateway city to the economic development in Shenzhen and the entire Pearl River Valley? (Dong guan, Guangzhou, etc.) You remember? The "economic development zone" set up by the (ahem) Communist Chinese Government. -
johnd at 04:52 AM on 26 March 2011Preventing Misinformation
re "Moderator Response: [muoncounter] See the thread on Extreme weather." There seems to be a lack of links to studies there also, something pointed out, but remains unaddressed. -
pbjamm at 04:51 AM on 26 March 2011Meet The Denominator
Please let this tread die. It is more maddening than the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics thread since it is all opinion and devoid of science content. -
Rob Honeycutt at 04:32 AM on 26 March 2011Meet The Denominator
WSteven said... "So, yes you did unless you've reinvented english and logic." Ding! Ding! Ding! Yes, Johnny, we have a winner! This is exactly Poptech's calling card. The alternate reality of Poptech logic. -
johnd at 04:30 AM on 26 March 2011Zero Carbon Australia: We can do it
Ken Lambert at 23:55 PM, just to add a point about the use of coal globally. In Asia more and more electricity is being produced by IPP's (independent power producers) who compete to supply power generally to the government authority for distribution. They are totally commercial profit making operations. Those that use coal have to pay world prices for it even if it is being mined in country, so there are no subsidies there, especially now with the global demand for coal. Ah, yes, the RSI outbreak, an interesting study of human behavior I thought. As an aside, what was the plant you were involved in the commissioning of? -
Rob Honeycutt at 04:21 AM on 26 March 2011The Libertarian Climate Conundrum
Poptech... I realize there is more than one macroeconomic theory. Do not underestimate my knowledge in this area. I know about the Austrian School and Mises. And the Chicago School and Keynesianism. You are mincing words with a broad axe. The point being, Libertarianism today is a guise for setting up a Plutocratic state. Most who profess to believe in Libertarian values do not even have a concept of what they are asking for. This is quite well evidenced through the article here. So, in a way you are correct. No one is talking about true Libertarian ideals, any more than Communism ever had that much to do with Marxism. My problem with Libertarians is, like Communism, it will never be applied as defined and will never work. It's a recipe for economic collapse. -
johnkg at 04:19 AM on 26 March 2011Meet The Denominator
#782 Alarmists do not use the UAH satellite record but instead use the ones that show a more pronounced warming. ergo, the IPCC are not alarmist. -
les at 04:00 AM on 26 March 2011A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
Gilles, there are so many reasons I don't understand what you're saying, it's unimaginable; but not sharing in your confusion on economic growth (and many many other issues) isn't (aren't) amongst them. Anyway, nice to see that your knowledge of economics is right up their with your physics and stats. -
Gilles at 03:55 AM on 26 March 2011A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
DM : "No, that would only be true if it burned cleanly and completely, which generally is not the case (e.g. carbon monoxide in car exaust fumes). " i'd like to strongly discourage you from thinking that you can reduce the CO2 by increasing CO - fortunately CO is slowly oxidized by radical reactions in the atmosphere (much like CH4) and ends up also as CO2. " Tar sands produce less energy per unit carbon than natural gas because you need to expend (vastly) more energy extracting it." If you think a little bit more of what you're saying, you will see that it's exactly what I am saying : all the carbon extracted gives eventually CO2, the only drawback is that less usable energy is produced with it. Tar sand do not emit "more CO2" per unit C - they only produce less usable energy per CO2 molecule.Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] I have rarely seen such an obvious example of trolling than suggesting anyone would think that increasing CO emissions would be a way of reducing CO2. Sorry, I am issuing a nolle prosequi on that one! ;o) -
johnd at 03:53 AM on 26 March 2011Preventing Misinformation
dana1981 at 02:19 AM, I am disappointed that you are unable to readily provide such references. That is not upholding the general spirit of SkS in that it is expected anyone making assertions,or even expressing opinions, should at least provide links to support their claims. Whilst the matter of extreme events has been raised in a number of threads, generally relating to specific weather events such as the recent floods in Australia for example, or as you mentioned, the Tennessee floods, there has been no thread that I know of that has addressed it statistically rather than emotionally. One of the points that needs to be resolved is the apparent conflict in some peoples minds of, one hand, attributing some such extreme events to conditions such as the current La-Nina for example, yet on the other hand, maintaining a general assertion that such systems are oscillations that are not indications of any trends. An event such as the Brisbane floods is a weather event, not a climate event. From an Australian climate perspective the actual event is this current La-Nina coinciding with a -ve IOD. Perhaps you would like to present such a review on extreme climate events on a new thread?Moderator Response: [muoncounter] See the thread on Extreme weather. The key take-away is, as dana pointed out, simply one of increasing probabilities of extreme events due to warming. -
Gilles at 03:48 AM on 26 March 2011A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
"Efficiency means exactly producing more usable product per unit of input. In the case of oil, using less of it for the same output will reduce CO2 production" les, the important point is that there is no reason to keep the same output if efficiency is increased. That's the very principle of economic growth. increasing the efficiency doesn't reduce in general the energy use and keep the output constant, but quite the opposite : keep the energy use constant and increase the output. If you don't get this point, you can't really understand what I'm saying. Actually it is worse like that, because increasing efficiency does event not keep energy reserves constant : it tends also to increase it. The amount of available FF is increasing with time.And there are not one, but two excellent reasons for that - increasing the efficiency of technology tends to decrease the extraction costs : we're becoming more and more performant to drill oil wells very deep in the ocean, extract hydrocarbons from shale, and so on... so actually for a given quality, they become cheaper and cheaper - increasing the efficiency raises the wealth produced by unit energy, so increases the cost of not using them . A cost-benefit analysis will be displaced towards a larger consumption equilibrium value. For the "cost" of burning 1 t C is always the same (it can be even lowered by improving adaption and mitigation), but the "benefit" increases. So not burning this t of C is increasingly expensive. If you want an explanation of why all discussions about "reducing CO2" universally fail, these are two very good reasons - you can have a reduction of the annual rate - this won't insure at all that you will reduce the total amount, quite the opposite actually. -
jatufin at 03:48 AM on 26 March 2011The Washington Times Talks Greenhouse Law
Carbon monoxide, doh! Of course I learned as a little boy, that "when the blue flames have run out, you can close the damper". Never realized the lethal amount really is so tiny. In crowded room you could easily say: "If there were as much carbon monoxide in this room, as there's CO2, we would all be dead in less than an hour". Or on sidewalk in big city. -
michael sweet at 02:38 AM on 26 March 2011A climate 'Gish Gallop' of epic proportions
John, This was the first time I have seen your one liners to counter a long Gish Gallop. I thought that they were very effective. -
damorbel at 02:32 AM on 26 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Re #842 Bibliovermis you wrote :- "Individual photons with equal 'temperature' (energy / wavelength / frequency) are identical regardless of source temperature." This is precisely what Einstein's 1916 paper is about, he shows how the electromagnetic 'Planck black body spectrum' is equivalent to the Maxwell-Boltzmann energy distribution in an ideal gas. -
Rob Honeycutt at 02:31 AM on 26 March 2011The Libertarian Climate Conundrum
Poptech said... "any "solution" involving government fiat has nothing to do with markets and thus is impossible for it to be a "market-solution"." You're a little slim on your macroeconomics there, Poptech. You might go back are read a little Keynes. Government is very much involved in economics. The governments uses a wide variety of tools to modify desirable market behaviors. Interest rates, tax incentives, money supply, etc. If you take the government completely out of economics then the market literally becomes the government. And I think that is exactly what Libertarians want. Especially very large and powerful corporations. The term is: Plutocracy. The problem is that Libertarians rely on the mistaken idea from the Chicago School that markets are inherently rational. The last decade should tell anyone that they are decidedly not so. Even in their best Milton Freedman-esk attempt to prove it (the Greenspan years) the Fed still had to modify the market through interest rate adjustments. Don't forget Greenspan's word after the collapse. "We underestimated banks ability to police themselves." -
Philippe Chantreau at 02:29 AM on 26 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
This has gone on long enough. I would like to encourage all to abide by this principle we keep on talking about yet keep on ignoring: DNFTT. Of course, every time we try, they spew another humongous piece of absurdity and we can't help but point it out. We have to stop doing that. They have all done has done an excellent job of demonstrating the extent of their confusion and no amount of redirecting can reconcile them with reality. At some, point, one's mind must be acknowledged as having declared itself. We're long past that. -
dana1981 at 02:29 AM on 26 March 2011Pre-1940 Warming Causes and Logic
Gilles #72 - if you had read my link, you would have seen"it is very unlikely that [transient climate response] is less than 1°C"
This is a minimum transient climate sensitivity parameter of 0.27 Wm-2K-1. For an increase in CO2 from 280 to 310 ppm (pre-industrial to 1940), the minimum anthropogenic warming by 1940 is 0.15°C. Or if you just look at the increase from 1900 to 1940, the minimum warming is 0.07°C. So it depends whether you're considering the anthropogenic contribution to 1940 from pre-industrial, or from 1900. But there is a minimum transient response. -
damorbel at 02:27 AM on 26 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Re #840 in Response: [Dikran Marsupial] you wrote :- "No, it means they have the same "equivalent temperature", it does not imply they were emitted by bodies of the same temperature." Photons are generated in different ways, but when they are generated by molecular motions they have energy directly related to the temperature of the particles. Einstein wrote a paper about this in 1916 "Zur Quantentheorie der Strahlung" and I've never seen it contradicted. Photonic energy is regarded as electromagnetic, although when they are created they take mechanical momentum from the emitting particle and give it (the momentum ) up when absorbed. But photons are not mechanical 'objects'; they have no mass, so they can't collide. Collision is how mechanical particles exchange momentum (thus energy), according to kinetic theory. Temperature is essentially a mechanical concept, that is why the energy of a photon gives it an 'equivalent' temperature.Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] You are still not making the distinction between the "effective temperature" of a photon/emitting particle and the temperature of the emitting body. Oh well, you can lead a horse to water... -
Bibliovermis at 02:20 AM on 26 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Discussing an individual photon's 'temperature' is a bit of semantic play, which is why quotes are used. Individual photons with equal 'temperature' (energy / wavelength / frequency) are identical regardless of source temperature. -
Byron Smith at 02:19 AM on 26 March 201110 key climate indicators all point to the same finding: global warming is unmistakable
Here is a possible 11th indicator: wave height. -
dana1981 at 02:19 AM on 26 March 2011Preventing Misinformation
johd #67 - not off the top of my head, no. You could find them as easily as I could. Google Scholar is your friend. -
Byron Smith at 02:18 AM on 26 March 201110 Indicators of a Human Fingerprint on Climate Change
Oops - posted on wrong thread. The above link should be on ten indicators of a warming world. Sorry. -
damorbel at 02:16 AM on 26 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Re #838 in Response: [Dikran Marsupial] you wrote :- "I suspect there is a good reason the article talks of an "equivalent temperature" rather than simply a "temperature"." There is. Photonic energy is regarded as electromagnetic, although when they are created they take mechanical momentum from the emitting particle and give it (the momentum ) up when absorbed. But photons are not mechanical 'objects'; they have no mass so can't collide. Collision is how mechanical particles exchange momentum (thus energy), according to kinetic theory. Temperature is essentially a mechanical concept, that is why the energy of a photon gives it an 'equivalent' temperature. -
Byron Smith at 02:14 AM on 26 March 201110 Indicators of a Human Fingerprint on Climate Change
Here is a possible 11th indicator: wave height. -
dana1981 at 02:10 AM on 26 March 2011A climate 'Gish Gallop' of epic proportions
Ken L #4 - the Knox and Douglass paper you reference was a horrid example of cherrypicking. See Monckton Myth #1, Cooling Oceans for a better analysis of all available data. -
caerbannog at 02:03 AM on 26 March 2011A climate 'Gish Gallop' of epic proportions
"CO2 was higher in the past" In addition to the Sun being cooler, the Earth was hotter -- at times a *lot* hotter -- than it is now. According to Dr. Richard Alley (in his memorable 2009 AGU talk), sea surface temperatures approached 100F in the tropics during the Cretaceous Hothouse period. But along with 100F sea surface temperatures, you will get dangerous levels of atmospheric heat and humidity, as in dew points well over 90F. Once the dew-point hits 95 F or so, *everyone* caught outside in conditions like that for more than a few hours will die of heat-stroke. Everyone. To keep your body's core from overheating, your skin temperature needs to be kept at 95F or below. Get dew points near or above 95F, and this becomes impossible. If we woke up to a Cretaceous Hothouse climate tomorrow, billions of people would die of heat stroke long before they had a chance to starve to death. A CO2 hothouse climate is incompatible with human existence. This was covered nicely in this most excellent skepticalscience piece last year: Heat-stress-setting-an-upper-limit-on-what-we-can-adapt-to Now, how to summarize all this in a nice sound bite... Maybe something like this? "CO2 was higher in the past" --> "It was also hot enough to kill most humans in a few hours."Moderator Response: [DB] Hot-linked URL. -
BlueRock at 01:59 AM on 26 March 2011A Plan for 100% Renewable Energy by 2050
scaddenp: > Well David MacKay's "Sustainable Energy without the hot air" most certainly considers it. MacKay's book has been accepted with a puzzling level of passivity. Most people seem to have simply assumed it's an unbiased, factually infallible work. A few people think otherwise: * David MacKay's "...inflated demand figure of 490 GW is nowhere near our real energy demand, and has mislead people into believing the myth that Britain’s energy demand exceeds its renewable resource, whereas the reverse is true: our renewable resource is much greater than our energy demand." http://www.energynumbers.info/british-energy-demand-and-professor-mackays-estimate-of-it-an-explanation-of-the-differences * 'No Hot Air' About Renewable Energy While Blowing Smoke: David Mackay plays 'Brutus' to the Sun's 'Caesar'. http://www.justmeans.com/-No-Hot-Air-About-Renewable-Energy-While-Blowing-Smoke-David-Mackay-plays-Brutus-Sun-s-Caesar/27338.html
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